On the Law of God

I.ConscienceAnd Moral Responsibility

OF ALL the beings inhabiting the entire earth, only man has an understanding of morality.
Every person is aware that the actions of man are either good or bad, kind or evil, morally
positive or morally negative (immoral). By these concepts of morality, man immeasurably differs
from all animals. Animals behave as is characteristic of them by nature, or else if they have
been trained, in the way they are taught. But they have no concept of morality and immorality and
so their behaviour cannot be examined from the point of view of moral understanding.

By what means does one distinguish between the morally good and the morally bad? This
differentiation is made by means of a special moral law given to man by God. And this moral law,
this voice of God in man’s soul, we feel in the depth of our consciousness and it is called
conscience. This conscience is the basis of morality common to man. A man who has never
listened to his conscience, but stifled it, suppressed its voice with falseness and the darkness
of stubborn sin, is often called unconscionable. The word of God refers to such stubborn sinners
as people with a seared conscience. Their spiritual condition is extremely dangerous and can be
ruinous for the soul.

When a person listens to the voice of his conscience, he sees that this conscience speaks in
him, first of all, as a judge – strict and incorruptible, evaluating all the actions and
experiences of a person. It often happens that some given action is advantageous to a person or
has elicited approval from other people, but in the depth of the soul this person hears the voice
of conscience, “This is not good, this is a sin.”

In a tight bond with this (action of judging), conscience also acts in man’s soul as a
legislator. All those moral demands which confront a man’s soul in all his conscious
actions (e.g., be just, do not steal, etc.) are norms, demands, enjoinments of this very
conscience. And its voice teaches us how one must and must not behave. Finally, conscience also
acts in man as a rewarder. This happens when we, having acted well, experience peace and calm in
the souls and vice-verse, after having sinned, we experience reproaches of the conscience. These
reproaches of the conscience sometimes pass over into terrible mental pain and torment, and can
lead a person to despair or to a loss of mental balance if he does not restore peace and calmness
in the conscience through deep and sincere repentance.

It is self-evident that man bears a moral responsibility only for those actions which he
commits, firstly in a conscious condition and secondly being free in the carrying out of the
actions. Only then can moral imputation be applied to these actions and then do they impute a man
either guilt, praise or judgment. On the other hand, people not recognizing the character of
their actions (children, those deprived of reason, etc.) or those who are forced against their
will to commit such actions, do not bear responsibility for their actions. In the epoch of
persecution against Christianity, the pagan tormentors often placed incense on the hands of
martyrs and then held their hands over the fire burning on their altar. The torturers supposed
that the martyrs would not endure the fire and would jerk their hands away, thus dropping the
incense into the fire. In fact, these confessors of the faith were usually so firm in spirit that
they preferred to burn their hands and not drop the incense; but even if they had dropped it, who
would charge that they brought sacrifice to the idol? On the other hand, a drunkard could not be
held as free of responsibility since he began to become drunk while still in a normal and sober
condition, knowing very well the consequence of being drunk. Thus, in certain northern European
states, a person who commits a crime while in a drunken condition is doubly punished, both for
having become drunk and for the crime itself.

That the moral law must be acknowledged as innate to people, that is, fixed in the very nature
of man, is indisputable. For this is bespoken by the undoubted universality in mankind of a
concept of morality. Of course, only the most basic moral requirements can be accounted as
innate, a moral instinct of a sort, but not revealed and clear moral understandings and concepts.
Since clear moral understandings and concepts develop in man in part through up-bringing and
influence from preceding generations, most of all on the basis of religious awareness. Therefore,
coarse heathens have moral norms lower, coarser, more malformed than Christians who know and
believe in the True God Who placed the moral law into man’s soul, and Who, through this
law, guides all of his life and activity.

STUDY GUIDE

Answer the following sentences in complete thoughts.

1. What does man have that no other creature on earth has?

2. What does morality and immorality mean?

3. What is moral law?

4. What is your conscience?

5. What happens when you don’t listen to your conscience?

6. How are some of the ways the conscience acts?

7. What does impute mean?

8. Who do not bear the responsibility for their conscience?

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Translated by Archbishop Lazar Puhalo - used with permission - all rights
reserved.